Johnny Knoxville Discusses New Film 'Being Evel'

What's up guys? Nicky Novak here for Young Hollywood. We are in the heart of Marina Del Rey at Harley Davidson. Who better to be here with than the one and only Johnny Knoxville? Great to see you.

Yes, because I know so much about motorcycles.

Listen, we would believe that you did. I would think that you would be like the original Harley guy. So, we are in this great shop. So, to take a little tour around.

So much I know about Harley Davidsons.

And and and just sort of get the lay of the land and maybe, you know, you'll pick your favorite. I'll pick my favorite.

Okay. Yeah. All right, let's go get the lay of the land. Let's do it.

Are we ready?

Yeah, we're ready.

What what are you looking for to bike? Um are you gonna sell me a bike today?

Yeah, yeah. First of all, you know, I know there's a wheel over here that if I if I spin big, is that my discount?

Wherever it lands on, you get the discount.

That's what I get off. I'm really looking for, you know, like something I can ride in a in a dress. I'm looking for, you know, like

I think that dress would be fine.

I mean, I'm a bit of a badass, but not too much of a badass. Right, right, right. You know, I want something that says girl, but I also want to like not be too gender specific. I mean, what do you think?

Well, I think if you're gonna be riding it in that skirt which is very short, uh depending on your personality, you could go with this one which would hide things. It's a low rider. Or you could go with that one over there which would hide nothing. It depends on your mood really.

So, you're saying I might need two?

You might need two, depending on how a girl's feeling. Talk about Evil Knievel and this documentary being Evil. You are one of the producers on it. You're in it. One of your quotes was kind of like back in the 70s. You're like, there was Muhammad Ali, there was him, and then there was Elvis, and then there was Elvis. Yeah. Who do you think today? Obviously, you're the modern day Evil Knievel.

No, I'm not. No, I'm I'm I'm well, you can say that. I I'm saying it. Matt Hoffman or you could say that about who's in the documentary, he helped produce it. Uh uh Travis Pastrana has that spirit. Seth Enslow, Robbie Maddison. Those guys, uh me, I I don't know. Uh that's they're they're on a whole other level.

Okay, so if the trio of you are the modern day Evil Knievel, who do you think is the modern day, you know, Muhammad Ali? And who do you think is the modern day Elvis?

Well, there's sometimes there's only uh one one of a kind. There's a lot of things that went into Muhammad Ali and just there's a lot of things that go and went into uh Evil Knievel, the uh storytelling ability, the showmanship, the intelligence, the the guts. That's impossible to replicate. Yeah. Uh there's a lot of people who try, but it doesn't it doesn't happen.

What quality that Evil Knievel had, do you think you most have?

If I say I'm gonna do a stunt, I'll do it. Uh a lot a lot of times ends in disaster, but um I I I think I uh a little bit of his spirit of the ethic, let's do it. Right.

Yeah. Somebody challenges you, you're gonna do it.

No, I don't really respond to challenges. Uh I challenge myself, but I I don't get into the the dares and everything.

You're not like one of those typical guys that gets

No, I don't. No. If I decide I'm gonna do something, I'll do it. And if you so, and if I say it, then yeah. Evil Knievel is not hesitating. He'll go. I didn't think of Evil Knievel as a daredevil. I thought of him as a superhero. No one ever went for it like that before. It was an amazing time. Evil was on top of the world. He's probably the only man in history who's become very wealthy by trying to kill himself. In the span of seven years, he became one of the most famous people in the world. Some people just

What about you? What are you choosing?

Oh, I want the one that most looks like the one uh Michelle Pfeiffer rode on the back of in Grease 2. Nice. When when she was singing cool rider and she went down the ladder on that. And I think uh one of these two would uh be, you know. That's the choice. Be be kind of like Grease 2 and I would be Michelle Pfeiffer.

You're gonna be Michelle Pfeiffer. Yeah. All right, well, these are kind of pricey. I'm looking at the price tags here. I think we might need a little bit of a You work here, so I can get a discount. You hook me up?

Yeah, yeah. I I've done motorcycle stunts before, but they someone had to let the clutch out for me. So.

Really?

Yeah.

So, can you drive a stick?

Well, that's a whole different conversation. I

That wasn't meant to be a dirty question.

Well, no, I didn't go to a dirty place. I did. I did. Oh, it's more like say driving say it's more like pushing a chain. Uh but that's a whole story.

Okay. We won't talk about your torn urethra at this moment. Yes. This did happen. This actually did happen to you. Was that the worst injury you think you ever sustained or the most painful or?

Uh the most psychologically damaging uh injury. Yeah, we think so.

And what about physically?

Uh yeah, there was a quiet, you know, I had a catheter for three and a half years afterwards, so that that was no fun, but just the thought of, you know, you know, it almost was gone. Uh a couple centimeters down and my handlebar broke off in my crotch trying to back backflip a motorcycle and if it hit me just a little bit lower, it'd been uh lights out.

So, listen, you do know a lot about motorbikes. Just not in the way that

Intimately.

Yeah, you've been intimate with them. In a blunt force trauma type of way.

Exactly. I I don't know how to ride one, but I do know how to let one fall on me from 25 feet.

On your highlight reel. What do you think your moment was?

I always never think in the about what what's done of mine. I always just think of like ones we did like it appeared in movies. Yeah, when Ryan Dunn parked that little toy car up his rear end and got an x-ray in the first movie or the Terror Taxi at the end of the second movie, uh the high five in Jackass 3. Right. I I was pretty happy with.

Do you think anybody today? Does anybody fascinate you in the same way?

Yeah, there's a lot of fascinating people today. Uh they don't affect me uh the way Evil did cuz they're not doing the things Evil did. He was such a one of a kind like my mind goes blank that I mean, yeah, there's a lot of fascinating people today, but there's nothing like Evil and there never will be again. He was such a showman and he was great at, you know, there was like that famous thing that he did in Vegas. Well, he knew people were not coming out to watch his takeoffs, they were coming out to watch his landings. And coming out to watch the bad ones. Right. He understood that. I mean, he'd been doing stunts a while, a few years before the Caesar's Palace jump. Yeah. And that's the one that put him on the map, that disaster.

Right. Do you think he would have been as much on the map if it wasn't for if he had landed it?

I think he would eventually got on the map, but it would have taken longer. He would eventually had the footage he needed to be get on the map and he was going in that direction. He called up uh all the sports writers and said uh Evil Knievel is gonna jump the fountains at Caesar's Palace this Saturday, be there. And then he called up Jay Sarno, the head of Caesar's, and he would call as a different person every time. Uh one time it was uh a guy from Sports Illustrated. Uh I hear uh Ivol Knievel is gonna jump uh your fountains on this Saturday. And then he called up again from, I don't know, ABC Sports. And uh I hear Evil Spanivel. He's kept mispronouncing his name from all these different people and finally Sarno, he's like, "Well, you know, I I I heard about this and I don't know if we have a deal with them, but yeah, I think I think it's happening." He just willed

Right.

that to happen.

Did you have the pajamas?

I didn't have the pajamas. Mom, I didn't have the pajamas. No, we we didn't invest a lot of sheets cuz I peed the bed until I I was like uh eight or nine years old.

Did you really?

Finally, but my I I was a real sound sleeper, I guess, and my mom bought me this thing called the Wee Alert and it was like a metal sheeting

Oh, my brother had that.

Yeah, and it would go off at night. I would hear it go off at night. I I don't do that anymore. Uh

Are you still a sound sleeper?

Unless I had too much to drink. Um but it but now I don't sleep as well.

You don't. Yeah. Childhood trauma. Yeah. Yeah. Insomniac. I wonder where that came from.

Yeah, I don't know.

You wanna see what discount you get on the bike?

Yeah. Let's go spin the wheel.

All right, um All right. Do you care to go first?

No, I I this is for you. I I'm uh I get an employee discount.

You do, don't you? What's your percentage?

Oh, I can't reveal that. That sound really good, by the way. I've always wanted to be on the prices right. All right, here we go. If I get 50, I'm gonna be really upset. There you go. No. $50.

$50. It's rigged. $50 off. I think this is rigged because before we started rolling, we spun it a couple of times and it keeps landing on the 50. Can you hook me up with a better deal than that?

Yeah, yeah, but we gotta cut the cameras off for that.

All right. Um thanks for chatting. Um we're gonna do some real dealin' now. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Congrats on the movie.

Thank you.

It's a must watch. Can't stop, you know, you can start watching and it's like saying, it's like taking off and It's it's like Watching a train wreck.